Mulvaney "should have thrown his body in front of that phone call."

Mulvaney sidelined as Trump’s impeachment crisis rages
The head of Trump’s White House staff is lying low — an approach being adopted by a wide swath of Trump aides paralyzed by an all-consuming fight.

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Instead, the president’s top aide has found his influence dwindling inside the West Wing as Trump faces the greatest threat to his presidency to date. It’s the same place where Reince Priebus and Gen. John Kelly found themselves, despite each having a wildly different management style and philosophical approach to the chief of staff job. Trump sidelined all three of them, even after Mulvaney made nice with his family and adopted his “let Trump be Trump” ethos.


“Mick is lying low, but everyone is lying low,” a former senior administration official said. “White House aides are hoping the president deals with this himself, and everyone is trying to keep their heads down.”

“Popping your head up will only lead to bad things,” this person said. “It’s uncommon for a chief to do this as well, but Mick seems to be in the same shelter-in-place posture everyone is in.”

Much of the White House staff is paralyzed by Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, as Trump keeps changing the administration's strategy on the fly and directs it from his own reactive Twitter feed. The president and his lawyers have taken control of the scorched-earth impeachment fight as advisers, White House staff and outside allies keep offering advice to fight Democrats and stonewall their investigation. Like Mulvaney, many of the aides know it’s best to follow the president’s lead in these high-risk situations.

“The central question here is: Where is Mick Mulvaney?” said Chris Whipple, author of “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.” “He's abdicated the most important duty as White House chief of staff, and that is telling the president what he doesn't want to hear. And the most dramatic result of his ‘Let Trump be Trump’ posture is the Ukraine scandal. He should have thrown his body in front of that phone call.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/09/mulvaney-white-house-impeachment-trump-041138